"Most did not know about this work. It was top secret.
Among those
who knew, not all understood, and among those who understood, not
all had access
to key decision-makers in Washington. Among those who knew, and
understood, and
who had access, I was the only one who stood up for it. Without
that, it is
certain the positive information would never have reached the
President. I did
something, and I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I did it because it
contributed to the
collapse of the Soviet Union. My only regret is that so many of my
former friends
who disagreed became bitter. I stood up to an unreasonable
majority which wanted
to stop the hydrogen bomb."

Dr. Edward Teller on his
role in the development ofthe hydrogen bomb, Seattle Times
interview, 1995.

"You who are scientists may have been
told that you are in part
responsible for the debacle (war) of today....but I assure you that it
is not the
scientists of the world who are responsible....What has come about
has been caused
solely by those who would use, and are using, the progress that
you have made
along lines of peace in an entirely different cause."

President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, 1940.

"As long as America and England insist
on unconditional surrender our
country has no alternative but to see it through in an all-out
effort for the sake
of survival and the honor of the homeland."

"I was against (use of the atomic
bomb) on two counts. First, the
Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit
them with that
awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to
use such a
weapon."

Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a
post-war interview.

"To avert a vast, indefinite butchery, to bring the war to an
end, to
give peace to the world, to lay healing hands upon its tortured
peoples by a
manifestation of overwhelming power at the cost of a few
explosions seemed, after
all our toils and perils, a miracle of deliverance."

Winston Churchill in his
history of World War II.

"A
bright light filled the plane. The first shock wave hit us. We
were eleven and a half slant miles from the atomic explosion, but
the whole
airplane cracked and crinkled from the blast. I yelled `flak!'
thinking a heavy
gun battery had found us."

Col. Paul Tibbets,
pilot of the Enola Gay,recounting the explosion at
Hiroshima.

"The enemy has begun to
employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power
of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of
many innocent
lives."

Japanese emperor Hirohito in
broadcasting to theJapanese people his
acceptance of surrender.

"It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in
science
are not found because they are useful, they are found because it
was possible to
find them."